What makes one Indy car faster than another?

Details matter.

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With the exceptional talent behind the steering wheels of the 26 cars on the grid, the decades of engineering experience on most timing stands, and
countless R&D hours spent on aero, handling and engine performance, the differences between a pole-winning Indy car and one that struggles to
crack the top 20 are hard to distinguish.

It comes down to the little things. A pound of tire pressure. A click in one direction on an anti-roll bar. Adjusting rear ride height by a few
thousandths of an inch. Changing the width or height of a wicker on a front wing element.

Most IndyCar teams come incredibly close to finding the right chassis setup. So when Will Power claims second in qualifying at Barber Motorsports Park,
that success is due to the marriage of the driver's preferences on handling details to the car's performance adjustments.

When the car feels right, Power can push the No. 12 Penske Chevy to its limit on each qualifying lap with little effort in the cockpit. The onboard video
illustrates the smoothness of this relationship between the driver and the race car.

Without watching the footage, you might expect Hildebrand's No. 4 car, also Chevy-powered, to be undriveable, or for Hildebrand to make errors that rob him
of crucial time on the stopwatch.

This is where it gets fascinating. The onboard footage from both cars is remarkably similar. Once the knockout qualifying session on the 2.3-mile, 17-turn
Barber track has ended, Power was a half-second faster than Hildebrand—.506 seconds to be exact—and that .506 turned out to be a
difference of 22 positions on the grid.

Measuring the time gained or lost on their laps is the subject of this post-Barber video feature, and we've added in a running timestamp to help gauge
where Power and Hildebrand differ on the road throughout a qualifying lap.

(The timestamp is for reference only—it isn't an exact counter depicting their actual lap times. For the record, Power's best was 1:07.334 to Hildebrand's
1:07.836.)

Watch their respective hand movements and listen to how and when each driver applies the throttle or brakes (I've put Power's audio on the left channel and
Hildebrand's on the right).

What you'll pick up right away is how stable Power's Verizon-liveried car is on corner entry, at the apex, and corner exit. His hands and steering-wheel
movements are sharp but smooth. There are no major instances where he's fighting the car. It's a fast, subtle lap.

Hildebrand is dealing with a more lively rear with his National Guard-sponsored car on corner exit, often needing to give extra inputs on corner entry and
at the apex. His hands make small corrections more frequently to get the car to rotate or to keep it from rotating, but nothing is drastic.

For every one of those corrections made by Hildebrand, Power inches ahead.

The two teams also took a different approach to gearing, with Power using a longer ratio in fifth to carry a hint of extra speed and momentum through Turn
7 (the right-hander coming up at about the 00:00:28:00 mark) and again in Turn 9/10 (the flat-out section after the Turn 7/8/8a complex at roughly
00:00:40:00).

Hildebrand's car was geared to shift into sixth just before Turn 7 and before he arrived at Turn 9/10, giving up some engine revs and a few more inches to
Power.

The biggest difference on the lap comparison comes in the final set of corners, Turns 12 through 14a.

Power, feeling a rock-solid car beneath him, charges over the crest at Turn 12, and the right-right-right Turn 13/14/14a. To attack Turn 12 and the
subsequent corners through Turn 14a, a driver needs to feel the back of the car will stick as it gets light, and as the footage and audio reveals, Power is
loaded with confidence.

With Hildebrand's slightly tail-happy handling throughout the lap, attacking Turn 12 with the same vigor as Power would most likely result in a spin. To
compensate, Hildebrand isn't as aggressive (starting at about 00:00:50:00). He works with what he has, and makes it cleanly through the rest of the lap.

Hildebrand's car control is among the best in the series, so while it might be tempting to say he needed to push harder over Turn 12 and deal with the
oversteer, it would have resulted in a slower lap.

Watch the video a few times and pick out the minute items that add up to why one car went P2 and the other went P24. For all the time and money spent, that
half-second advantage doesn't look like much, does it?

This article also appears at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway website. Bookmark them for ongoing IndyCar coverage and analysis during the runup to next month's Indy 500.